Photo: Gord Weber/3DownNation. All rights reserved.
It’s been only three weeks since the Ottawa Redblacks traded Dru Brown to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, yet the veteran passer appears set to make his return to the nation’s capital this weekend.
Winnipeg has yet to officially name a starter as Zach Collaros is dealing with a neck injury, but Redblacks head coach and general manager Ryan Dinwiddie suspects Brown will be looking to be at his best against his former team regardless of where he’s listed on the depth chart.
“I knew he was going to be coming weeks ago, you kind of understand where the schedule’s at,” Dinwiddie told the media on Wednesday.
“I think any game he’s going to want to play well, but especially this game. He’s probably got an axe to grind with it, but that’s not in our control. We’re focused offensively on their defence, and defensively — whoever is in there, Zach or Dru — we’ve got to have a good performance.”
Brown’s exit from Ottawa was a little messy. After the trade was announced, Dinwiddie told the media that Brown became “a little bit of a distraction” and lacked arm strength.
The veteran passer, who requested his release after Jake Maier was given the starting job, has taken the high road since getting back to Winnipeg, where he spent the first three years of his CFL career.
“It’s over and done with now. Obviously, I’ve got a lot of relationships over there with some of the players, and I love those guys,” Brown said after leading Winnipeg to a win over Toronto this past week.
“We each have different issues, different situations. I wish them the best, but I’m focused on what we’ve got going on here, and excited to roll forward with it.”
Dinwiddie has plenty to worry about regardless of who starts for the Blue Bombers this week. His team is 0-5 with the crowds at TD Place Stadium growing ever thinner as apathy sets in.
Maier has struggled under centre for the Redblacks this season, completing 66.8 percent of his passes for 1,372 yards, seven touchdowns, and seven interceptions. Four of those picks came last week in a 40-17 loss to the Edmonton Elks, which went off the rails in the fourth quarter.
Though the Redblacks remain committed to Maier, the calls to play McLeod Bethel-Thompson, who joined the team immediately after Brown was traded, will only grow louder unless the team starts winning.
“I’m only worried about the guys in this building. We wanted to keep Dru around and it didn’t work out, so he got a chance to go to Winnipeg, and we’ve got McLeod in here. We’ve got the veteran backup guy,” said Dinwiddie.
“We still believe in Jake. Obviously, the four interceptions were not what we wanted — a few of them were pushing the ball down the field, almost ‘hope throws’ where we were at later in the game.”
“We’re going with Jake again this week and I have a responsibility — if we feel like there’s a quarterback change that needs to be made to give us a spark, we’ll look into that. I’m not going to put the pressure on Jake and say he’s got a short leash, but if I feel like McLeod’s going to give us an opportunity to win a football game, we’ll do that.”
Ottawa signed All-East Division running back Greg Bell in February fresh-off a 1,000-yard season with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. The results have been disastrous as he’s managed only 133 yards over four starts, averaging a miserable 3.7 yards per carry.
Dinwiddie believes that running the ball more effectively is one of the keys to taking pressure off Maier.
“We’ve gotta stay out of second-and-long. We’re asking (Maier) to make all these throws in tight windows in second-and-forever, so we’ve gotta get the run game going,” said Dinwiddie.
“On the few days off, we went and revisited some of the stuff that Greg Bell was good at in Hamilton, so we’re going to look at trying some different run schemes, try to go outside zone — that’s what he’s really good at, and we haven’t been able to get that going, so we’ll look at some different run schemes.”
Eugene Lewis is also off to a slow start this season, having made 13 catches for 174 yards over four starts.
The three-time All-CFL and four-time All-East Division selection is the league’s active career leader in receiving yardage, though you’d never know that based on his production this year. The 33-year-old ranks outside the top 30 league-wide in receiving yardage and third on the team behind Ayden Eberhardt and Justin Hardy.
“We’ve had some shots for him. We had a double-move last week, we didn’t make a play on that one. It was a 50-50 ball,” said Dinwiddie.
“We’re going to have to get some more to him. I think that’s one of his skill sets is having a big catch radius and big wingspan, so we’ll find ways to create some matches for him.”
The Ottawa Redblacks (0-5) will host the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (3-2) on Sunday, July 19 with kickoff scheduled for 7:00 p.m. EDT. The Blue Bombers are coming off a 30-21 win over the Toronto Argonauts, while the Redblacks lost 40-17 against the Edmonton Elks.
The weather forecast in Ottawa calls for a high of 27 degrees and a mix of sun and cloud. The game will be broadcast on TSN and RDS2 in Canada, CBS Sports Network in the United States, and CFL+ internationally. Radio listeners can tune in on 680 CJOB in Winnipeg or TSN 1200 in Ottawa.
